I shared a rather personal story about a memory of Prince I had from my grade school days on twitter in response to the conversation going on about his death yesterday. I thought I would share another one from when I was a DJ up on Rush and Division in Chicago when I was an adult. It seems rather round about but bare with me here:
I used to work at several bars up in what is known now as “The Viagra Triangle” as a bouncer/DJ. How I become a female bouncer up there is another story for another time but yeah, I bounced and I wanted that extra dollar an hour so I was a DJ as well.
I actually was a very good DJ.
I knew music, I knew people, and I knew how to control a room.
I had several “nights” that were mine up there and I had a little following as well. It was kinda cute… Half of it was because I played good music and the other half was my witty/assholish commentary on the mic. I did three nights a week at several clubs and if there was a problem with “clientele” I would get brought in to DJ because I ignored threats when I was spinning. My nights were a Punk Rock night Tuesdays, Thurs I did an 80’s night and Friday/Sat I would do dance music, varying slightly depending on which club/bar I was working that night. My 80’s night became very popular so they moved me to Friday Night at this one place. It was a long ass shift… I started at 7 PM, was done at 4 AM. I wasn’t allowed to start drinking until after midnight unless the manager saw that I was having more than the usual assholes I was dealing with in the DJ booth. On that Friday night, I realized it was good to have a routine so that people kinda knew when was a good time to get a drink (and leave me the fuck alone). There were two things you knew I was going to do on an 80’s night. I’d play some Billy Idol and it would be two for one shots and I’d dance crazy in the booth… And you knew sometime around midnight, I was going to take a break, get my shot, go to the bathroom. The tradition was that I always played all 12 mins of “A Love Bizzare” by Shiela E. As soon as that came on, people would start dancing stupid and I could slip out the booth and take a break.
“A Love Bizarre” was written by Prince.
Once we were into the last three mins, I’d make my way back to the booth, get my headphones back on and I always had a Prince song queued up to rock right into “A Love Bizarre”. It never was the same song… Sometimes it was “Controversy” or “Baby I’m a Star”. You never knew what I would pull to go into, but it was always Prince and it always kept the room happy and slippery and sexy.
Anyway, I was looking for “A Love Bizarre” today and when I looked, you CANNOT get it on MP3 or CD… it’s only on vinyl! Which made me want to make this post… I found a copy online- cheap. Right now it seems like everyone is buying up Prince Albums so they’re going for like $150+ dollars and reissues are sold out right now. A lot of that has to do with how Prince managed his back catalog.
Anyway… here is the FULL 12 mins… as I say it should be played… because the beat is just that good…
I’d embed some Prince too- but he wouldn’t have liked that. He would have preferred if you went out and bought his music. And you really should. Need too.
I have no idea who made this Prince through the years collage, but it bears sharing.
RIP Prince. This one hurts.
